2 August: Well, this is embarrassing. I inadvertently reversed the designations of Inflight and Free-Flight. Thanks to Oscar Meyer for the correction.

If you're unfamiliar with the function of the tailhook in carrier landings, I suggest you look at this blog post first: https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/12/brief-history-of-tailhook-design.html

While "Inflight" and "Free-flight" would seem to be very similar if not identical conditions, as terms of art in carrier aviation, they are very different although separated by a very fine line. For one thing, both occur when the airplane's tailhook picks up an arresting cable (Cross Deck Pendant or CDP, another term of art) before the landing gear touches the deck. The critical difference is the airplane's vertical velocity at that moment: in an free-flight engagement, it is negative (a descent) or zero; in a inflight engagement, it is positive (climbing).

Free-flight engagements are not uncommon and generally benign. They often occur simply because the hook point is almost always below the main landing gear wheels as the airplane approaches the deck and the hook point is not very far from picking up a CDP when it meets the deck.

The F-35C hook point location relative to the wheels with the airplane about to touch down is an exception, but it still looks like an free-flight engagement might sometimes result:

Note the location of the tailhook on this TBM relative to the main landing gear as the LSO gives its pilot the cut, which will result in the Avenger sinking relatively steeply to the deck:

Both the flat approach to a cut that was used before the flight deck became angled and the descending approach guided by the visual landing system used thereafter reduced the likelihood of an free-flight engagement because of the steepness of the descent combined with wind over deck resulted in the hook point being on the deck for a relatively short distance before the main gear touched down. But they occurred:

A inflight engagement, on the other hand, is likely to result in significant damage. It is usually caused when the pilot tries to salvage a bad approach with an aggressive addition of power and/or aft stick:

Some have suggested that this Corsair had simply bounced, given its early reputation for doing so. I think not. One possibility is that the pilot decided to initiate a wave off after being cut by the LSO, which was verboten. In any event, the outcome was almost certainly very hard on the airplane.

This looks more like a bounce but it's hard to be certain without seeing earlier pictures of this particular landing.

An SU-33 aborted landing to a Russian carrier could have resulted in one of the worst inflight engagements of all time:

Click HERE for the video.

One of the early discoveries of the differences between prop-pulled and jet-propelled airplanes was that the latter benefited a great deal from the availability of speed brakes. When the pilot pulled the throttle to idle on the former, the propeller pitch changed rapidly to maintain rpm and the drag increased significantly; there was no need for speed brakes (there were exceptions: dive bombers needed dive brakes to keep the speed within reason in a near-vertical dive; the Grumman F8F Bearcat had small dive-recovery flaps under the wing to more quickly pull out of high-speed dives). Jet planes slowed down with the throttle reduction but far more gradually.

The speed brake design specification was a reduction from maximum speed to a specific slower speed within a given number of seconds. Avoiding much of a pitch change with extension or retraction and minimal buffet when extended was also desired.

The U.S. Navy's first jet, the McDonnell FD-1 (subsequently FH-1) Phantom had speed brakes similar to the spoilers necessary on gliders to allow for the adjustment of the glide angle on final approach. They both increased drag and to some extent, reduced lift. They extended up and down out of the wing on a parallelogram mechanism.

North American initially fitted its FJ-1 with a similar system.

However, after one side extended and the other didn't during a flight test, causing an uncommanded roll and the pilot some concern, North American substituted speed brakes scabbed onto each side of the aft fuselage.

Note that the actuator is located in a well but the speed brake itself simply closes onto the exterior skin of the fuselage.

Vought didn't initially provide its first jet, the F6U Pirate, with speed brakes.

One was quickly added to each side of the aft fuselage:

Grumman provided two speed brakes on the belly of the F9F Panther fuselage just aft of the nose wheel well. The location was retained through the Cougar; however, the F9F-9/F11F Tiger was designed with three speed brakes, one under the nose and two under the main landing gear wheel wells.

Douglas initially configured its F3D Skyknight with three speed brakes on the aft fuselage, possibly to insure the ability of the all-weather fighter to slow down as quickly as possible behind a bogey being intercepted so as not to overrun it or worse, run into it.

Photo via Paul Bless

However, the lower dive brake was deleted for production.

McDonnell retained the FD/FH wing-mounted speed brakes through the F2H-3/4 Banshees.

 On the F3H Demon, however, the speed brakes were relocated to the more common position, either side of the aft fuselage, probably dictated by the different airflow on a swept wing.

Speed reduction was considered particularly necessary when Vought began testing the F7U-1 Cutlass that was capable of breaking the sound barrier in a dive. The problem was that if its single hydraulic system failed for any reason, the control loads became very heavy, increasing with speed. As a result, in addition to the split speed brakes on the inboard trailing edge of the wing, another pair of speed brakes was added under the engine inlets to slow the Cutlass down as quickly as possible so the pilot could regain control.

The extra pair of speed brakes was unnecessary on the F7U-3 since it had a fail-operate flight control system.

Sometimes the aft fuselage lacked a suitable surface for the location of speed brakes. The Douglas F4D Skyray had four small ones, mounted above and below the fillet inboard of the wing.

McDonnell placed the F4H's speed brakes on the bottom of the wing, sandwiched in between the main landing gear wheel well, the trailing edge flap, and the aft Sparrows:

Sometimes it took the engineers more than one attempt at locating the speed brakes. For example, this was the F8U mock up (note that the cannons are located directly under the forward fuselage);

On second thought, they made it a single panel on the belly aft of the nose wheel well and moved the cannons to the side of the forward fuselage.

While this meant that the F8U couldn't be landed with the speed brake extended, the primary reason for that was to add drag on approach so the engine response from the higher thrust required was quicker. Raising the wing for landing provided more than enough drag for that purpose.

The General Dynamics F-111 speed brake doubled as the forward main landing gear door:

The pilot had to bear in mind the increase in drag when the gear was retracted.

On the F-14, Grumman located the speed brakes on the upper and lower surface of the aft fuselage between the engine nacelles, a single brake above and two below—also see http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-speedbrake.htm

On the F-18A/B/C/D, McDonnell utilized a single speed brake on the top of the aft fuselage that doubled as a billboard.

The Navy determined that some of its jet attack airplanes needed more (and in one case less) speed brake than originally provided.

The North American FJ-4 was repurposed to be a backup to the Douglas A4D. Among other detail changes for the mission, an extra pair of speed brakes was added under the aft fuselage.

The Navy also decided that the original pair of A-6 speed brakes mounted aft of the engine were inadequate so Grumman added a pair of split panels to the trailing edge of the wing tip.

Ironically, it was subsequently decided after some service use that the fuselage-mounted brakes were a problem and the wing-tip ones were adequate, so the former were deleted in production and made inoperable on existing A-6s.

The Vought A-7, originally dubbed the Attack Crusader, was provided with a somewhat bigger speed brake for its strike mission capability;

Although it did not have the raised wing for added drag on approach and extended even farther down than the F8U's, the low-bypass fan engine was presumably deemed to be responsive enough at approach thrust, not to mention the drag of the multiple pylons on the wing.

The North American A3J Vigilante prototypes were built with an enormous speed brake under the fuselage.

However, the Navy decided to delete it for production. The speed brake function was instead provided by the lateral control system, which consisted of deflectors and spoilers on the wings. Instead of them extending asymmetrically for roll control, they all extended at the same time for speed reduction.

The Douglas A3D Skywarrior was also utilized for "dive" bombing, but what looks like a speed brake in front of the bomb bay was actually a spoiler that extended along with the bomb bay doors to eliminate the recirculation of air inside the bomb bay. Otherwise, the bombs would rattle around in the bomb bay after being released instead of dropping out.

The ultimate in speed brakes, however, is similar to the A3J/RA-5C's in that there is no dedicated speed brake per se, but much more effective. The F-18E/F's fly-by-wire flight control system permits speed control without speed brakes by utilizing the existing flight control surfaces, flaps, and the leading edge extension spoilers to add drag when desired. (Note that the flight control system is also programmed to toe-in both rudders for takeoff and approach for lower nose wheel liftoff speed and improved longitudinal stability respectively.)

The leading edge extension (LEX) spoiler had been added to disrupt the LEX-generated vortex that allows for controlled flight at very high angles of attack. When the pilot adds sufficient forward stick at a high angle of attack, the spoilers extend to disrupt the vortex, which results in a faster nose-down response.

Consistent features of Angelo's books are high-quality reproduction of many high-resolution pictures, mostly color; operational histories; aircraft configuration and marking information; color profiles; and technical data. In this case, it begins in the beginning with the formation of Composite Squadron Five (VC-5) in 1948 to add nuclear bomb delivery capability to U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.

Heavy Attack Squadron One (VAH-1)—soon to be christened the Smokin' Tigers (note the mushroom-shaped exhalation of smoke)—was subsequently formed in 1955 to introduce the big Douglas A3D Skywarrior in service for that mission. The squadron's long history and the book concludes with the retirement of the North American RA-5C Vigilante in 1979. In between, the various aircraft types it employed, the deployments the squadron made, and the transition from the nuclear-strike mission to multi-sensor reconnaissance are covered in detail.

Although the book's subtitle includes the word "pictorial", it is much more than a collection of pictures as evidenced by the participation in the book's preparation of R.R. "Boom" Powell, a naval aviator who flew the Vigilante and has written a book about it.

As an alternative to the link above, the soft-bound edition of Smokin' Tigers is also available from Ginter Books.

I have been remiss in not publicizing this series before, literally a labor of love by Mat Garretson. Volume One covers the years 1946 to 1955 (Volume Two is in work). It is comprehensive in scope (documents and many, many photos from the Blue Angels archives as well as interviews with former Blues), printed on high quality paper, with the photos, artwork, and illustrations in color if the originals were. It was published in two flavors, a limited number of the Plankowner Edition (hardcover, A3 format) and a Regular Edition (softcover, A4 format). The latter is available at a discount through tomorrow, 18 March 2022.

For additional information and to order, click HERE

The picture above was taken of the flight deck crew aboard Shangri-La probably in 1955. Note the colorful combinations of jerseys and "helmets". These identified the specific duties of each man, officer and enlisted. The practice reportedly began in the beginning aboard CV-1 Langley. I know for certain that the color assigned to a specific responsibility changed over time.

For example (and I apologize for not knowing who created this illustration), in 1943:

Note purple is assigned to the "chockmen" although the color here could easily be considered blue:

 However, in this 1954 picture of F9F Panthers being refueled, it is being done by men wearing both red shirts and red helmets.

Note that they do not have a large "G" on the back of their jerseys as stated in the 1963 first edition of The Naval Aviation Guide:

Note that the catapult crew are not specifically cited as wearing green and "gasoline crews" are wearing red shirts, not yet purple. In fact, purple isn't assigned to a responsibility.

However, by 1970 according to Stars and Stripes, fuel crews are now wearing purple:

From the 1985 edition of The Naval Aviation Guide:

And "today" (click HERE for a full size image):

And/or watch a video, HERE.

 The U.S. Navy's A3D Skywarrior and USAF B-66 Destroyer are very similar airplanes from the same manufacturer, Douglas, initially with very similar missions, medium-range bomber. They look very much the same to the casual observer in a dim light. Some of the differences were necessary but not obvious: the carrier-based Skywarrior had to have folding wings, an arresting hook, and catapult hooks for starters. In fact, however, it's far easier to list what didn't change between the A3D and the subsequent B-66. For all practical purposes, you could say that the B-66 had the same basic overall shape as the A3D except that is, for the forward fuselage and the inboard wing trailing edge. And possibly the wing tips.

For one thing, they had different engines as evidenced by the different engine nacelles. Douglas was lucky to get in line early for deliveries of the new, USAF-funded P&W J57 when the Navy's Westinghouse J40 disappointed. J57 production was all but oversubscribed when the Air Force ordered the B-66 from Douglas so it was saddled with the Allison J71, which had about the same performance but was somewhat inferior in other respects to the J57, as evidenced by the much shorter list of airplanes powered by it.

This is a graphic depicting the most notable external features of the A3D that differentiate it from the B-66:

This one depicts the most notable features of the B-66 that differentiate it from the A3D:

In addition to those details, the two had different radars, bombing/navigation systems, tail-gun turrets, landing gear, wing incidence, inflight refueling probe locations, etc. 

I plan to create a post on one of my aircraft modeler oriented blogs that illustrate the differences in more detail.

This is a long needed update of Naval Fighters 13 by the same author published in 1984. "Greatly expanded" doesn't do it justice. Forget page count or number of illustrations: this soft-cover monograph printed on high-quality paper weighs a little over two pounds! If you didn't know already, it clearly demonstrates that Nick is the most knowledgeable F4D subject-matter expert.

He covers the lengthy and somewhat troubled development of the F4D in detail, both words and pictures. For example, much of the the account of its nearly disastrous first flight was new to me as were the difficulties in adapting the F4D inlets designed for the J40 engine to the J57. Both the Douglas development and the unit-by-unit histories of Skyray evaluation and operational usage are accompanied by first-hand pilot descriptions of its performance and flight characteristics, warts and all. There are 13 pages of F4D color photos spanning its entire career from initial flight test to its use by the Navy Test Pilot School as in one student's observation, "an interesting and not particularly dangerous 'horrible example' (of unusual flying qualities)".

The monograph concludes with several color pages of F4D model kits that have been produced since the early 1950s. A section of illustrations from the flight and maintenance manuals and closeup photos of details like the landing gear will also be of interest to modelers.

One relatively new and welocome feature of Steve Ginter's monographs is a Table of Contents. It is actually more of a non-alphabetical index but very helpful in quickly finding a topic of interest in its 257 pages like the Test Pilot School quotation above.

I was somewhat surprised that Nick didn't dwell on one of my favorite airplane hobbyhorses, whether or not the F4D was the Navy's first supersonic (in level flight) fighter. (For my opinion, click HERE.) He does describe Douglas' attempts to so (the proposed top speed was Mach 1.2). There is, of course, no question that it could easily break the sound barrier in a descent when not burdened with external fuel tanks or other stores. I'm all but certain that all anecdotal pilot statements that they had been supersonic had done so in a descent or were looking at an inaccurate Mach meter.

Note: Both Nick and I strongly encourage you to buy his monograph directly from Steve, avoiding the middlemen who would otherwise enjoy a significant proportion of the sale price, not Steve. I don't know if he's still offering it at 20% off of the list price, shipping cost included (probably good for the US only) but you might ask him at 805-404-7156.

 In November 1944, the recently commissioned Shangri-La was used to conduct carrier evaluations of three aircraft, a Grumman F7F-1 Tigercat, North American a P-51 Mustang, and a North American PBJ-1H Mitchell. Click here for one report on the trials of the F7F and PBJ: http://steeljawscribe.com/2007/10/05/flightdeck-friday-more-oddities. Click here for my post on the Navy's involvement with the P-51: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/06/seahorse.html

The otherwise stock PBJ-1H was modified to have a tail hook, catapult provisions, and main landing gear struts that could be swiveled 90 degrees so that it could be lowered on the deck-edge elevator and rolled sideways into the hangar.

Contrary to the "more-oddities" post, the PBJ did not have an SBD tailhook, per se. It would have been too short and possibly under strength. For some reason, the Mitchell's tail skid was deleted when the hook was added.

Catapult provisions included the standard hooks and hold back attachment:

Although the "more-oddities" post states that it was an additional evaluation of the carrier suitability of a tricycle landing gear airplane, my guess is that it was an improvement on a plan to use PBJs for close air support of landings on the Japanese main islands. The concept was to launch them from an aircraft carrier, à la Doolittle, and have them land back at an airfield for turnaround and to be craned back aboard an aircraft carrier to repeat. For one thing, an evaluation of carrier takeoff and landing suitability did not require a demonstration of the ability to strike a dud below deck.

Every once in a while, someone posts a picture of a barricade engagement on an angle-deck carrier and refers to it as the barrier. Sometimes I comment that it is properly known as the barricade, not barrier, and the poster or someone else is offended at being incorrectly corrected.

For all I know, the big net, I'll call it, is now officially known as the barrier; certainly many refer to it as that. However, once upon a time, before angled decks, it was important to differentiate the barricade from the barriers, which are no longer needed on angled-deck carriers.

This is an illustration of the usual arrangement of cross-deck pendants, barriers, and the barricade on an Essex-class carrier:

Note that there are 12 cross-deck pendants (the last one of which goes across the elevator; it had to be puiled forward when the elevator was needed), five barriers, and one barricade. There are four control stations for the cross-deck pendants and one each for the five barriers. An enlisted man is assigned to each control station. In the case of the barriers, one of his responsibilities is to raise and lower his barrier as required, notably prop barriers to be up for prop plane approaches and down for jet approaches; Davis barriers are the reverse.

The difference between the original barrier and the Davis barrier is important. For a refresher, see https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/10/barriers-and-barricades-one-more-time.html

It was also important, in the event that the hook caught a late wire and a trap seemed assured, that the aft-most barrier be lowered if an arrestment seemed assured so the plane did not also engage a barrier, possibly causing damage to the plane and likely disrupting the flow of landings, delaying them.

This is a pretty good example of a late trap by an F9F Panther. The prop barriers are down and the Davis barriers, up. Note that the hook did catch a late wire/pendant but the first Davis barrier was still up. The plane's nose landing gear snagged its activator strap appropriately (there was also a retractable post immediately in front of the windscreen to activate the barrier in the event of a nose landing gear collapse).

Also note that in this instance, the Davis barrier cables (as opposed to the canvas activator straps) did not engage the main landing gear struts, which was how the jet was to be brought to a stop by the Davis barrier. That was because there was an engagement "window" with respect to the airplane's speed. Too slow, and the cables fell back to the deck before the main landing gear got to them; too fast, and the cables had not yet been pulled up high enough to clear the wheels and snag the struts (this latter case resulted in the addition of the barricade to the mix).

 I had intended to post this here but inadvertently created it in my modeling blog. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2022/12/a-brief-history-of-usn-helicopter.html

Wow! Does this article take me back. I was on the USS Nashville (LPD-13) in 1981 when we deployed on a mine countermeasures deployment with four RH-53Ds from HM-14, two mine-sweeping boats in the well, and an EOD det. We were with the USS Leader and USS Illusive MSOs (Mine Sweeper Ocean). Lots of NATO mine counter measures exercises in the North Atlantic and Med. Great liberty! Lightning paced ops at the mind boggling speed of 8 kts.

He provided a link to a picture of Nashville with RH-53Ds on board:

 Every once in a while on the internet, with respect to U.S. Navy swept-wing fighters before the introduction of the F8U Crusader and the F4H Phantom II, I read something like "X did not have a very long service career" or plaudits for one that was more of an also-ran, if not an outright disappointment.

When I wrote U.S Naval Air Superiority once upon a time, I created an illustration of deployments by year by type for the Navy's first swept-wing fighters and the F2H-3/4 Banshee.

A deployment was defined as an extended one, i.e. at least six months. One to two-month shakedown cruises were not included.

By that figure of merit:

                         Years        Deployments

F9F-6/7            3               22

F9F-8               3               16

Total              ~5               38

FJ-3                4                19

F7U-3            2                7

F11F               3                6

F2H-3/4        ~6               38

F4D-1           ~5               18 

F3H-2            7+            44

Note that engines and aerodynamics peaked with the J57/J79 and area rule, respectively, so the F8U Crusader and the F4H Phantom II had much longer careers than the fighters they replaced. Improvements thereafter were with avionics in the same basic airframes until the next significant innovation in engines, low bypass-ratio fans, were introduced with the F-14.

The earlier retirement of the F9F-8 relative to the FJ-3 when the F8U/F11F were available to deploy is a little misleading: the Navy elected to modify some -8s as -8Bs armed with the Mk 12 nuke and assign them to attack squadrons while waiting for the availability of the A4D Skyhawk.

Note that the F11F made one fewer deployment than the F7U-3 (and fewer were built), primarily because it was inferior to the F8U in almost every respect except handling qualities on approach. It was, of course, assigned to the Blue Angels and as a lead-in fighter in the Training Command for many more years. The Cutlass's short career?: most will have to wait for the publication of my F7U-3 book for a proper assessment of the reasons why ( a preview: it wasn't because it had an unacceptable accident rate, weak nose landing gear, unreliable engines, low thrust-to-weight, etc.)

With respect to the all-weather fighter requirement, the F3H is often cited as a failure and having a short career when in fact it was clearly superior to the others in terms of longevity of service with carrier air groups (the F4D was relegated to shore-based Marine squadrons as soon as the F4H became available). For those seven years, it was the only fighter in a deployed carrier air group that could engage and likely shoot down an incoming jet bomber in all-weather conditions. Supposedly underpowered, that was with respect to the fighters not lugging around big radar-guided missiles and the avionics necessary to use them effectively.

Every once in a while, someone wonders why rocket-assisted takeoff is called JATO (Jet Assisted Takeoff) instead. According to Captain Robert C. Truax, who was literally the Navy's rocket scientist (also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Truax), it was as follows:

"My job at the Bureau of Aeronautics (beginning in 1946) was to set up a permanent jet propulsion deck and to draw up a program for the Bureau to pursue in the field of rocket development. Since at the time 'rocket' was a science-fiction term associated only with crackpots, the term 'jet propulsion' was always used. My program included the setting up of an in-house Navy project at the Engineering Experiment Station to develop liquid-propellant JATOs for the PBY airplane as well as rocket propulsion for guided missiles, sounding rockets, and manned aircraft."

It appears that JATO was generally used to describe solid-fuel propellant takeoff assist and subsequently thrust enhancement using liquid-fuel propulsion was at least sometimes described as a rocket engine.

For my post on his rocket-powered, manned interceptor proposal, see:

 https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/11/and-now-for-something-completely.html

For some of my other posts on JATO, see:

 https://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2013/07/jato.html

https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2017/07/f8u-3-auxiliary-rocket-engine.html

https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/01/truculent-turtle.html 

https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2018/09/special-hobby-fh-1-phantom-and-xfd-1.html

https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2020/04/lockheed-p2v-3-neptune.html

https://www.crecy.co.uk/vought-f7u-3-cutlass

An excellent monograph by an actual historian who does his research in archives (not on line or using books by authors who rely on Wikipedia), high-resolution scans on high-quality paper, knowledgeable and informative captions, previously unpublished close-up full-page photos, color illustrations of paint schemes and markings, what's not to like?

A couple of nits: On page 13, the venturi has nothing to do with airspeed; it was there to provide suction of air through the gyros for the blind-flying instruments initially fitted. On page 135, the pilot must not have leaned his engine to run out of fuel early, not run it exceptionally lean.

I expected to see at least a few pictures that I had not seen before but not this many. I didn't expect to learn much about the TBD but I did. For one thing, there is not only an exceptional set of pictures depicting the small, flush, removal bomb racks under the wings; by including one of a PBY's with bombs mounted, it becomes obvious that the multitude of small pins on the racks served as sway braces. Another was an early kludge of vertical-fin-mounted lights so the LSO could determine the approaching TBD's angle of attack. An evaluation of the addition of a defensive machine gun at the assistant pilot's seat?!?

For my illustration of the multiple bomb/torpedo load options illustrating by multiple pictures, click HERE.

Sources: Amazon or eBay

Note that this is not a comprehensive history of the TBD's operational use although it does provide the a summary of its development and early World War II service before it was withdrawn following the debacle at Midway.

Navy pilots landed the early jets on carriers as they always had, with the canopy open. It facilitated rapid egress from the cockpit if they had to ditch.

If the engine quit, below about 1,000 feet, ejection was not an option to ditching.

The early ejection seats were primarily bailout assists, necessary at the higher speeds that the jets were capable of compared to piston-engine powered fighters.

However, on axial deck carriers a last-ditch barricade was added for jet landings because the Davis barrier—that was intended to stop them if they failed to be arrested by the customary means, the tailhook engaging one of the arresting cables—could sometimes be defeated (see https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/10/barriers-and-barricades-one-more-time.html).

This, however, introduced a new concern, that the heavy cable going across the deck at the top of the barricade might wind up in the cockpit instead of ending up aft of it.

As it happened, many of the subsequent generation of carrier jets had clam-shell rather than sliding canopies and were therefore closed on both landing and takeoff. The two Douglas F4D Skyray prototypes actually differed in that respect, with the clam-shell being selected for production:

 My guess is that given the cockpit pressurization required, the clam-shell configuration was lighter and became the standard.